For more than a decade, All Covered has provided its clients with technology solutions to meet their business needs. Through years of supporting small- and medium- sized businesses, All Covered has realized the value of developing Subject Matter Experts that have the skills and experience to lead consulting teams in order to ensure that clients’ technology needs and expectations are always exceeded.

John Dupras has been identified as An All Covered Technology Business Plan (TBP) Subject Matter Expert. His experiences working with All Covered for nearly a decade have made him a recognizable asset to the All Covered Team.

All Covered: Please tell us about your employment with All Covered.

John: I have been with All Covered for a total of 8 years. I started out as a Business Development Executive doing sales in the local market. When the direction of the company changed, I left All Covered for 15 months. In November 2005, I came back to All Covered as a Director of Consulting Services for the Seattle Market. During the past 6 years, I have also been the Director for Seattle, Regional Sales Director for the Western US, and Director for Seattle and Denver. Currently, I am fulfilling multiple roles as Director and Relationship Manager for Seattle and Sales, particularly involving synergies with Konica Minolta.

All Covered: You have been identified as a Technology Business Plan (TBP) Subject Matter Expert. Could you tell us what a TBP is?

John: A TBP is a document prepared for clients that identifies their current state of technology, their desired state of technology, and the gaps between the two. It is used to build a roadmap of our thoughts on how to get from where they are to where they want to be. It is more than a technical document, but takes into account the overall business strategies and challenges.

All Covered: What is a TBP Subject Matter Expert?

John: A TBP expert is someone that is able to identify a client’s business needs and provide the technology solutions to support it. As a Relationship Manager, it is my role is to understand the business drivers that are enhanced through technology and work with the All Covered Solutions Architects to design technical solutions that will enable the client’s business initiatives to be more successful. A person who understands the administrative and technology sides of business and how the two work together is extremely beneficial to the overall success of our clients.

ALL Covered: What did it take for you to become a subject matter expert in this area?

John: I have a degree in Business Administration and over 30 years of experience in Sales, Management, and Customer Service. A lot of my career has been in technical fields, although I have never been a technical person per se. My ability to listen well and ask thoughtful questions, coupled with the fact that I am genuinely interested and curious about a client’s business and vision makes it both interesting and challenging for me.

All Covered: How do clients benefit from your TBP expertise?

John: Because I have done a number of TBPs, I have the experience to offer clients a point of view that they might not have considered. Since I have been involved in a number of TBPs for a variety of clients with different business needs, I have the ability to draw on that knowledge and experience and share it with other clients and add value to the discussion. Clients appreciate the additional information they may not have considered and the opportunity to discuss and evaluate different approaches and points of view.

Wireless connections from various mobile providers and establishments have become ubiquitous, giving you constant access to the online world and allowing unbridled productivity on-the-go. For most small and medium-sized businesses, the Wi-Fi is the preferred connectivity standard for hooking up to the office’s wireless local area network and its value in the workplace is unprecedented. Needless to say, many IT companies are leveraging on its features to deliver in-house applications, tools and services to its employees and sometimes, even to clients that are within the company premises.

Needless to say, it is crucial that Wi-Fi receptions continue to be seamlessly accessible as intermittent or dropped connections to it could hamper a company’s production cycle and even cause client reliability issues. Here are a few suggestions for improving your network.

Find Out Where It’s Thinning Out

Find out which areas of your office are getting weak Wi-Fi signals by arming yourself with a Wi-Fi detector and inspecting every room. Naturally, spots in the workplace like offices, conference rooms and the entire production floors should have strong wireless receptions. However, there are smaller pockets of the office where it would be more logical to either use a more secure wired LAN connection or simply just leave Wi-Fi-free. Let your IT services department make that call. Then, you can either reorganize your router settings or rearrange your access points accordingly for optimal results.

Reorganize Your Wireless Network

Based on the list you’ve created on Wi-Fi strength per room, arrange the areas in your checklist by priority based on the existing office equipment and the common activities being done on those areas. For starters, make sure that your wireless router is positioned in a central location like a control center in the middle of a production floor, and hooked up to the ceiling to make sure there are no obstructions.

Steer Clear of Wireless Blockages and Noise

Finding the prime location for your router and strategic spots for your access points should be one of the first concerns addressed when setting up a wireless network for new office spaces or when moving to a new workplace. When mapping out where they should be placed, always consider the placement of specific elements in the room and the devices around it. Walls, floors and both metallic and concrete structures are known to weaken and even block Wi-Fi signals. Similarly, microwave ovens, Bluetooth-enabled devices like keyboards, mice and speakers, and even cordless phones and baby monitors (if you’re working from home) can also cause decays in Wi-Fi reception strength.

Update Existing Wireless Devices

More often than not, after wireless devices have been installed, most companies simply leave them behind and thoughts of future maintenance, updates and contingency plans are relegated in the backburner. Outdated equipment like wireless routers and repeaters still littering the network may cause weak or no Wi-Fi receptions in the office; perhaps due to discrepancies with the software drivers, lack of support for newer operating systems or maybe the legacy hardware components simply do not comply with the latest platforms. As such, it is of utmost importance to check for firmware updates once a month and to include wireless devices in your IT services’ hardware lifecycle refreshes. For more help with your small to medium businesses IT needs call All Covered at 866-446-1133.

Microsoft Office 2010 will be internationally available to consumers on May 12, 2010.  Small, medium, and enterprise businesses will appreciate the many new or improved features that are designed to improve overall productivity.  Read on to learn how Microsoft Office 2010 will increase your business’s overall IT productivity.

Express yourself

Office 2010 offers your business many visual ways to get your point across to board members, clients, investors, and everyone else in between.  Picture formatting tools, SmartArt®, new PowerPoint tools, and prebuilt Office themes give you the tools you need to express your yourself visually.

Collaborate and communicate

With Office 2010, it is easier than ever to work and share thoughts and ideas with others on team projects.  Microsoft has improved Word, PowerPoint, Excel Web App, and OneNote so that teams can share co-authoring rights and share completed projects with targeted audiences.  In addition to making collaboration simple, Office 2010 makes it easy to communicate with enhanced Outlook features such as the Outlook Social Connector that keeps users connected to social networks and through a new email management system called Quick Step.

Take it on the road

Office 2010 makes it easy for users to enjoy the familiar Office experience from many devices, regardless of location.  Microsoft Office Web Apps lets users store Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Word files online or on a business server, and then access, edit, and share those files through the internet.

Manage your data

Collect, filter, and assess data in visual tables to track trends with new tools such as Sparklines and PivotTables in Excel.  Organize, store, and track notes, pictures, text, video, and audio with OneNote.  Manage data quickly and easily with Backstage™, a new and centralized way to view, print, publish, share, and save files and tasks.

A practical platform for your business

Office 2010 will save your business money by maximizing the performance of all your IT hardware.  Enhanced connectivity features make it easy to connect to servers and other services.  Your business will benefit from enhanced productivity through data archiving and retention tools as well as new security tools that operate behind the scenes to quickly identify and solve problems.

Learn more about MS Office 2010

To learn more about how MS Office 2010 can improve your business’s productivity, please follow along for the next several articles where we will discuss the new or improved Office 2010 features.  We also invite you to contact by visiting us at All Covered or calling us at 866-446-1133 to discuss the specific ways that Office 2010 will help improve your business’s productivity.

Check out our Guide to Choosing the Best IT Companies

When you opened your business, whether it was two months ago or two decades ago, chances are that you decided to focus your business’s services in an area where you have a level of expertise. It is also likely that you hired employees that have the skills to support your business’s core functions. Ultimately, you probably have a group of excellent employees who, just like you, would be happier focusing on the business instead of the behind the scenes administrative tasks.

One of the largest administrative tasks that all businesses must address focuses around IT infrastructure support. Whether you have only one computer and a printer or a complete network, not only does your IT network need to be maintained on a consistent basis, it might have the occasional issue that happens at a very inconvenient time.

Consider the last time your business had an IT network issue. How long did it take you to fix that last problem with the printer? How long did it take an employee to fix the new problem that was created as a result?

Instead of focusing on IT network support that takes you and your employees away from core business functions, consider outsourcing with a professional technology services provider. When you use a professional IT consulting service, you are hiring a company of highly trained experts to do what they do best—make sure your IT network works—so that you can do what you do best.

Consider a small lawyer’s office. A lawyer can bill $500.00 an hour for legal services for eight hours a day, as long as her computer and printer are working. On a day where that isn’t the case—she can’t access her notes or print them out—she can spend an unhappy of lost revenue while she tries to troubleshoot a network connectivity issue. Not only could that decision cost her $4000.00, it would also divert her time away from her core business functions of providing legal services.

By hiring a reputable, affordable IT consulting service, that lawyer would have the have the peace of mind of knowing that her IT network needs are always taken care of. She would also know that in the unlikely event that there is an IT network issue it would be quickly addressed by any team member from the IT consulting firm that she hired to take care of her IT needs.

Reduce the amount of time spent just keeping the doors open. The day-to-day running of your small business requires so many skills outside of your core business functions that you and your employees likely spend more time doing behind-the-scenes administrative tasks than revenue generating opportunities. Hiring a professional IT consulting service will remove one set of necessary but non-core business tasks from your company’s to-do list so you and your employees can focus on what your company does best—providing expert services to clients and creating revenue-generating opportunities.

Contact All Covered at 866-446-1133.

Check out our guide to choosing the best IT companies

With the rapid rise of modern technology comes the onslaught of new modes of communication. Nowadays we can have our pick from a plethora of tools and services that allow us to converse with our personal and business contacts. Our computers alone, along with a working Internet connection or internal network, provide several communication points. It has become the norm to have at least one e-mail account and an instant messenger for chats. Online forums, and recently Google Wave are being used as organization tools. For small to medium businesses, innovations in IT and communications technology has allowed for the birth of a new species of employee – the telecommuter.

Weeding Out the Cons of Working Out of the Office

A telecommuter is basically the fancy term for a home-based worker, or any hired person who works outside of the office. These remote workers can be either freelancers or full-time employees. Many small to medium based businesses employ telecommuters because they are a cost effective source of manpower. Also, since they do not work in-house, the work area does not end up too crowded or cluttered. The downside of telecommuting is that the company cannot personally supervise their home-based workers. There is always the risk of miscommunication. Telecommuters also usually tend to be behind on recent updates and announcements. However, there are human resource practice-based ways to go beyond these issues and make the most out of telecommuting.

Connecting remote locations weeds out the cons of working out of the office. Companies can communicate and collaborate with their telecommuters much more efficiently with the help of remote IT tools that allow users to access the headquarters’ main network from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Tools of the Trade

Companies can connect remote users and remote locations via the World Wide Web using DSL, T-1, frame relay or other solutions. With the help of a team of competent and extensively experienced IT professionals, a small to medium-sized business firm can set up a secure remote network that can act as the portal for telecommuters to keep up to date with what is going on inside the company. The portal can take the form of a remote e-mail server or a Web-based desktop. IT solutions such as Terminal Services, Citrix and thin clients allows companies can give their remote workers access to the same services as if they were in the office such as file servers and even printers.

Not Just for Telecommuters

Establishing a remote network does not only make for more efficient communication and collaboration with the company telecommuters; it can benefit in-house workers as well. The network can be configured to be accessed by all workers involved, so that even those who are based in the office can go to their file server should they need to check on something work-related at home.

IT solutions such as LogMeIn, GoToMyPC and Microsoft RDP allow workers with separate computers at home and at the office to share files and other data between the two systems. That way, there will be no confusion over which computer has an updated version of a file.

Dealing with Security Issues

Connecting remote users and remote locations can greatly increase the efficiency of business operations. However, security breaches are not out of the question. Remote networks, much like any other IT network, are prone to bugs and other malicious applications. All Covered is one IT solutions provider that not only helps in establishing the company’s remote networks, but also offers full-time, 24-hour support for its clients. IT consulting advisors pinpoint and fix issues before they blow up and disrupt the system. Remote networks become less susceptible to security breaches. Companies are rest assured that only authorized people can gain reliably secure access to the network.

For more help with your IT network and wireless solutions contact the IT consulting experts at 866-446-1133.

One of the transformative effects of current events at the end of the last decade has been the trend of people paying more attention to the work of non-profit organizations. They do all manner of work that most people take for granted: From educational services for out-of-school youth, to caring for veterans of war, or even participating in the occasional volunteer clean-up projects to help make a beach or a park safer and neater.

One can wonder: “If people are doing this kind of work, why doesn’t it always succeed in ridding society of its ills?” The short answer: Finances. The fact still remains that non-profit organizations operate (and should operate) like a small business enterprise. The objectives will differ – one is aimed towards earning money, while the other uses money for a greater goal – but that dichotomy takes nothing away from the missions that all businesses should target: Sustainable income, efficient processes, a well-trained competent staff and growth.

Imagine, then, the good that coordinated IT services can do for a non-profit organization. For example, an organization needs to do both work at the office, and work must also take place in the field. These two functions can be coordinated easily with network communications devices.

If, for example, your organization is a team of paralegal advisors who help take the preliminary acts for filing of court petitions or cases, you will invariably need to draw up a lot of legal documents, many of which can be more easily stored and more readily accessed with a digital database. For another example, a team involved with advocacy for a far-flung community organizing with indigenous people may be made more streamlined if there were means to transmit real-time events happening with the community online to a live internet audience, and with people in the headquarters taking care of promotions, attention-grabbing and the like.

If remote mobile Internet is not feasible in distant locations, another way could be to synchronize data gathered on the field with information in the headquarters regularly via physical means. Images from cameras or data collected with mobile devices can be consolidated and sorted easily upon return, for better strategizing. Imagine how much more money organizations can raise, or how many more lives they can save, with a proper, information-based plan of action.

These are examples of activities that information technology can help make better. These tasks are vital for a non-profit group from a field operations standpoint; however, there are also challenges that must be addressed at the home headquarters. One oft-cited example of this is the task of managing paperwork, forms and other notes that all need proper filing, sound organizing, and easy searching, retrieval and access. A paperless, remotely accessed system for such data can be critical. Financial papers, like tax forms, employee wages and expense accounts, cannot be left to just basic note taking and record keeping. It pays to have this information secured, so as any potential threats to security can be kept away.

These are all good areas for a non-profit group to invest in technology in. The trouble, however, is that not all such organizations have the finances to invest in technology, let alone work with it continuously. Most funding for such groups must go to operations, and while investing in IT can make them more efficient, it is not that easy to put money into it in the first place. There is also the matter of skill – not all people who are part of non-profit organizations have the kind of training or specialized knowledge that can useful in certain tight spots. If, for example, something goes wrong with a network router, or if the team will need to procure new computer monitors, then it may not be easy to find that kind of specialized help.

Starting up or strengthening a team’s IT applications like this might be best left for the IT consulting professionals. All Covered, for example, has experience in handling non-profit groups like Child, Family & Community Services, Inc., by working well within their budget and still accomplishing their needs. For more help on how All Covered can help you with your IT strategy and make technology work for you call us at 866-446-1133.